Russian Investigative Committee offers to help WADA probe new evidence

Olympics - 14 Nov 2017

Author: Callum Murray

Russia’s Investigative Committee, the country’s main federal investigating authority, is ready to cooperate with the World Anti-Doping Agency in looking into fresh data which WADA said last week it had obtained from the Moscow anti-doping laboratory.

WADA claimed that the data “reinforces” allegations in the WADA-commissioned McLaren report of cover-ups in a Russian anti-doping programme.

The Investigative Committee told Tass, the Russian news agency, that it was ready “to cooperate with the World Anti-Doping Agency in order to investigate into the possible violations of anti-doping rules and probe into information that the database contains.”

The committee said that it sent a message to WADA yesterday offering
cooperation in studying the database.

The committee said that it is already investigating Grigory
Rodchenkov, the Russian doping whistleblower and former director of the Moscow
lab who is under witness protection in USA.

Rodchenkov was last week reported to have given new affidavits offering evidence of state-supported doping to two International Olympic Committee commissions investigating the scandal, and to have threatened to make them public himself if they are not given proper consideration.

Rodchenkov has repeatedly claimed that the Russian doping conspiracy was funded and organised by the office of former sports minister Vitaly Mutko, now a deputy prime minister.

A decision on whether to allow the Russian team to participate at the 2018 winter Olympics in PyeongChang is to be taken by the IOC executive board in December based on the findings of one of the commissions, and looks certain to be influenced by WADA’s announcement over the new evidence.